Almost everybody has either a mobile or tablet running on the android operating system or some gadget that is running on IOS, these operating systems both have app markets, and that is what my post is about today. I decided to tell everybody about in my opinion the best 2 apps for astronomy ( these apps are both in the IOS app store but I'm sure the same apps or a very similar alternative are available in the android app market).
Go Sky Watch Planetarium (free)
This app is by far my favourite astronomy app you can either point your device at an object in the sky to find Out about it or you can tap on it with your finger, once you have done this you are given great usefull information about it, magnitude (brightness), elevation, right ascension and declination ( to find it with your telescope if you have setting circles ) and the compass direction of it. You can also find objects by using the search bar, with this you can find constellations, deep sky objects, planets and stars, also it has a great options menu where you can set the minimum magnitude of stars, wether or not you won't it to be displayed in red so that you don't lose your night vision, wether or not it show deep sky objects e.t.c Finally my favourite feature of it once you have selected and object you can click a button to take you to a wikepedia page all about the object. To sum up this is a really great app which I think that anyone interested in astronomy should get.
Moon globe (free)
This app is my second favourite astronomy app, and I use it almost every time I observe the moon. Using this app you can either look at the moon either as a globe so you can see its features on the dark side which you can't see from earth or you can view it from the view point of an earth telescope where you can only see what you will be able to see from a telescope ( I find this mode the most useful ). You can also select what day you want to see it on, so depending on the day it shows it in different phases, once you are looking at it you can select what labels you want to have on it ( menu in the top left corner ) terrain spacecraft or distance from the earth on that particular day. My favourite mode is spacecraft because then using my telescope I can try and get as good a view of the landing sites as possible. This is a great app for use while observing the moon, it is also great for explaining to tiger people your knowledge on our only natural satellite.
So I hope that you are able to get both these amazing apps and have as good an experience with them as I have had, if you have any comments on either of these apps or wish to suggest any other apps that I should add to this post, feel free to leave comment below.
Have you considered putting planet finder in your favourite astronmy apps?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment :) I to have the planet finder app, it's great for showng people roughly where the planets are in the sky, but in my experience I found that it wasn't very precise and hats why I didnt include it in the post. While using the app have you found it accurate ? Because it might just be my iPad.
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